Discovering London-I woke up one day and realized I’m in London (5th & 6th Day)

London was pretty much how I imagined it would be; gloomy weather, posh streets and alleys, chic boutiques, gardens and parks in amidst the bustling city, royal palaces, double-decker buses, throngs of people just rushing about as if they were off to accomplish something mightily important, while some leisurely sipped their favorite beverages in the many quaint cafes, like they have all the time in the world, and again, there are some, who are just curious about London. What does London has to offer? Sure it is more than just the infamous London Bridge is falling down rhyme (it never was in the first place) and of course, there is Prince William.

It was my first time in London and second for Oliver. So, equipped with a map, a helpful device that shows how to get from one place to another, and an Oyster Prepaid Card for the buses and tubes, all courtesy of Aunt Pat, we were ready to explore London on our own.

London city- the series of cobbled streets were busy, the air; murky and almost filthy, but other than that, in all earnestness, one cannot help but feel alive just being in London. There are just so many things to see, experience and get excited for. Walking down the streets of London felt surreal. All those times spent digging my nose on the many Little Black Dress book that I loved so much, where the settings almost always took place in London, I remember thinking, “Hey, that’s Oxford Street, I’ve read somewhere about Oxford Street. It must be in one of the book I read.” Definitely.

Anyway, pictures from the two days we spent in London! (You know, it’s kind of hard to pick a few pictures from the many pictures we took. Always leave me in dilemma. : P. Oh well)

1st Day

Places we went: London City, British Museum, National History Museum, Victoria Museum, Kensington Garden, Kensington Palace, Picadilly Circus, London Chinatown and of course, countless of tube stations! Oh, just a piece of advice, don't and I mean, Don't visit three museums in a day. One is good, two is still okay but three is a big No, no which we did anyway.

The frontier of British Museum. It's really Huge! and quite interesting really. In it, it has like several sections e.g. Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Asia, China, Renaissance et cetera.

Admiring the headless statues. You'll see abundant of these in all the museums. Marbled and ceramic statues of all sorts. It gets tiring. :)

Ain't hard to guess which part you'll see this.

Some fancy-schmancy artworks on the wall

Souvenir Shop! Didn't get much because it's expensive. And I was quite a cheapo when in London. Whenever I wanted to buy something, I'll convert it first in my head, and then, almost always, I ended up not buying it. :(

 

National Art & History Museum

 

The Centerpiece

 

Some ancient miniature wall

Us. :) We had less picture together in London because we were on our own. So, this was the least we could do. And I wanted more pictures of us together while Oli kept saying, "Wherever you are in the picture, I'm there."

 

Oh swans, pigeons and duck galore!

That's Kensington Palace behind me. It was quite funny looking for Kensington Palace. We were walking around the whole park looking for it. We kept expecting to see like this humangous palace with big royal gates and all until we asked some patron, and this friendly guy was laughing and telling us, " Well, it's just right over there and yeah, it's not what you think it is." So he was pointing to this brown building and we saw it and thought, "Oh, we passed through that and paid no attention to it because it didn't look like a palace." More like a huge mansion..
 

Picadilly Circus! I love Picadilly! It's so lively here. And here is where I was supposed to meet up with Li Min, my good friend, former room-mate back when I was studying in KL.

Finally! I have to travel half the world just to see this girl!

This is London Chinatown.

Fourseason Restarant, famous for its Roasted duck which was really, really good. I kept begging Oli to go back there and he insisted that we try something else. :(

Oh my goodness, this was really, really good. I can eat the whole thing!

After dinner, we went to watch a Musical 'Grease'. My first musical and I love it so much! I was like smiling throughout the musical. The cast were good, the music and the band were awesome and it really made my day!

2nd day

Buckingham Palace, London Eye, Tower Bridge (Also known as London Bridge), Camden Street, back to London China Town and all around London.

Buckingham Palace

Royal guards

The front of Buckingham Palace was overcrowded. So, we could hardly see the changing of guards that was going on at that time.

Buckingham Garden

Obligatory picture of us 1#

And another one

A bit of London Eye and Westminster Abbey

:)

Westminster Abbey.

London Eye

With the Tower Bridge behind us

I love this picture. It's so candid

Street Performances

Camden Street

That's for London. To say that I miss London, well, not really. If it wasn't for Li Min, I might have skipped London. But, I don't mind going to London again. I have yet to fully explore and immerse myself in London. So London, till we meet again. :)

Hello

We'll be back. So stay tune :)

Cheers,

Oli & Mel

Eindhoven and Hello London (4th Day)

So where were we? Jef drove us down to Eindhoven from Olen. The journey itself was uneventful. Probably because I slept most of the one hour journey to Eindhoven. We reached Eindhoven at half past nine at night and soon after, we met up with Patricio (From Mexico) and Maria (From Russian) who hosted us for the night. That's the cool thing about surfing at people's place. We saved a lot in terms of accommodation.

Anyway, soon after settling down and putting our bags at Patricio's, we went for a drink and met up with another of Oli's friend, Faizal (From Indonesia). Oh, in Eindhoven, you see people cycling from one place to another every where. They even have neat designated streets and traffic lights just for cyclist. So, it was pretty cool. And Maria lent her bicycle to Oli and I so she could ride with Patricio and I could ride with Oliver. And it was quite romantic in a way; Oli riding the bicycle while I sat behind him and clung his waist to avoid from falling down. But after awhile, I could see Oli was struggling with the bike, and I felt bad for him. *Sigh*

Anyway, the cafe we went to was called Book Cafe. And it's exactly how you imagined it would be. Books everywhere; on the shelf, by the racks, or just stacked up to the ceiling. It was fun hanging out with Oli's friend. We talked, we drank and we were served with free platters of finger foods, courtesy from the cafe. Pictures from the night:-

The interior of Book Cafe

See the shelves behind me, filled with books

Some of the books are stacked from floor to the ceiling

Meet Maria, Patricio and Faizal. Guess who is who (which is pretty easy :)

:)

Just another picture of us.

Everyone was deep in conversation.

Very lovely couple, they are.

The next day, we went to TU Eindhoven (Technical University of Eindhoven) to meet up with the same bunch and an additional bunch of Oli's mate and had lunch at the University cafeteria. Food was okay. We hang out at the University until it was time to go to the Airport to take the flight to London.

One particularly fond memory of Eindhoven is us having fish and chip at the airport. We chose to sit outside the airport cafeteria to enjoy the sunset. That was nice and probably the highlight of our short trip in Eindhoven. :)

Us having fish and chip outdoors, eventhough weather was quite chilly.

Beautiful sunset

Soon after, our Ryan Air flight took off to London. The flight journey took about an hour. When we finally reached Airport Stanstead, London, we took a cab to Kingsbury, where Oli's aunt lived. And guess what, we were totally ripped of our pounds. Imagine paying 80 pounds for a 45 minutes drive. That's like 400 ringgit. Hmm, London is definitely expensive in that sense. When we reached Kingsbury, Aunt Pat(Oli's aunt) welcomed us to her humble home. By then, we were totally exhausted, so after a light snacks and brief conversation with Aunt Pat, we retreated early that night anticipating London the next day.

I'll write about London in the next post. This entry is beginning to sound more like a log report narrating events in sequence. Truth is, I am not feeling well and I'm too lazy to think deeper about the trip but at the same time, I felt bad for neglecting this blog over the Easter weekend that I felt I ought to write something.

Anyway, as I write now, I'm on my way to a speedy recovery. So, I hope I'll be as healthy as a horse in no time. :)

Till then, cheers!

Discovering Belgium: Antwerp (4th Day)

Fourth and last day in Belgium was spent in Antwerp. It was rainy, wet and cold when we arrived in Antwerp by train. Despite the cold, drizzles and occasionally finding ourselves lost and frustrated in amidst the city, I actually really, really miss those times in Antwerp. Us walking hand in hand in the cold, along the cemented path way, across the cobbled streets, up and down the long escalators, along the stretch of under ground tunnel, and just walking. The city itself, unlike Ghent and Brugge, is more of an urban slash high-fashion sort of city but not necessarily lacking of historical elements. It’s like a fusion between the old and new. And I don’t know if it’s me or what, but Antwerp seems more diverse in terms of its people and culture. But one thing for sure, Antwerp equals to good memories. Except for one bit when we went to this Chinese restaurant and the cashier slash waiter thought that we did not understand Chinese and he was complaining to his colleague about us just because we actually went up to him three times to order. I mean, what the heck man, we’re customer and customer equals to $$$. Some people are just plain ‘rude’.

Anyway, here are pictures of Antwerp (I just like saying ‘Ant’-‘Twerp’)

Us on our own, on a train to Antwerp

Antwerp Train Station

Just another obligatory touristy picture

With a really comical elephant statue

Some odd thingy in the middle of no where

We later walked across (above) using an underground tunnel

Long escalator #1

Long escalator #2

Oli 'Jumping' Picture

Yours Truly

Who's a better jumper? :)

Fusion of new and old

Some beautiful art print on the wall

One of the bigger room in Printing Museum

Inner courtyard, Printing Museum

Mirror Picture. Well, gotta have one. :)

Moi'

Printing during the Ol' days in Europe used to be so tedious that only the skillful can print. Nowadays, all are technologies. *Sigh*

I wished I had a home library like above.

:)

Antwerp

A castle (I'm really bad with names of a place)

The building behind me is a library.

Statues in one of the cathedrals in Antwerp

Chasing pigeons.

My favourite picture of Antwerp.

When I asked Jef if he wanted me to bring anything from my homeland, he requested for a flag. At first i thought it was an odd request. Now, I know why.

Last day @ Jef's :(

Jef played a parting song for us and he was so good. Really.

So, that rounds up our trip in Belgium. Later that day, Jef drove us to Eindhoven, Netherland where we were supposed to meet Oli's friend. But I'll write about that in the next post.

Cheers for now.